This was a radical and fantastic idea of Palmerston's, which led to vigorous debate. But the interest in Palmerston's case going against Portugal and hunting t

This was a radical and fantastic idea of Palmerston's, which led to vigorous debate. But the interest in Palmerston's case going against Portugal and hunting the slave ships with the intent of ending the slave trade. That's what he felt was England's interest. Other things Palmerston cared about was that no country would end up powerful enough to dominate the entire world-- that's another thing he saw as part of England's interest. How sad to reduce interest to economic concerns or maintaining traditional alliances, when the idea was initially to justify this act of going against Portugal and the traditional alliance.